now by law the u.s. needs to cut off budgetary body parts to shed $85 billion over the next seven months. i'm talking about things like cutting food inspectors and reducing hours at national parks instead of making smart cuts. agencies are cutting off fingers and toes and knocking out teeth to lose weight. those little cuts don't add up to much, less than 3% of what the government spends each year, but they do affect performance. take a couple toes off your feet and see how that works. the part of the budget with the biggest cuts have been hit in the last few years. agencies don't have a ton of flexibility. as much as there's this whole saw about how the government is full of waste, it sure is. but it still amounts to cutting hair and toenails when it comes to the budget. programs that are effective are subject to the same cults than the ones that aren't. under the sequester, we need to cut fingers off both hands. the bottom line is it's an incredibly stupid way to lose weight. ken rogoff is an expert on